Silverfish
by Tierfal
Summary: Sirius faces off against an incredible foe. The world may never be the same - and Sirius's sanity certainly won't.


_Author's Note: Why so Sirius? D: Because my fantastically amazing friend The Ersatz Diplomat wanted Sirius and the prompt "silverfish" for Christmas, of course! Except really for Hanukkah. Which is why I posted it today._

…_I'm afraid it got progressively crackier as the night wore on. Please forgive. XD And yes, I have battled silverfish, which is actually how this whole thing came about_…

_Watch your language, Mister Black!_

_(…he says he's watching it, but it's not doing anything.)_

* * *

**SILVERFISH**

There were silverfish in the bedroom.

No. That didn't do it justice.

There were _silverfish_ in the _bedroom_. Silverfish. The most purely demonic non-magical thing Sirius Black had ever had the wild misfortune to encounter.

_Silverfish_. In the _bedroom_.

It was terrible. He'd done research. He'd flipped through books on entomology, scouring their moldy pages for a precious clue, a charm of banishment, a hex that would wipe (well, smear) their slithering, silvery exoskeletons right off the face of the beleaguered planet.

Or at least out of the goddamn _bedroom_. His _sanctuary_ had been _defiled_. How was he supposed to pass out on his bed, wasted to that fabled point three centimeters short of oblivion, and find comfort in his gaudy red and yellow pillowcase _now_? It might be harboring fugitive silverfish…es…, which it might release onto his stunning, inimitable face with no _warning_…!

Not the face. _Not. The. Face_.

All he'd managed to learn was that his silver fishlike foes had an affinity for damp places and eating starches, such as book bindings, sugary substances, and very likely Sirius Black's stunning, inimitable face. Especially if you considered, for starters, just how many girls wanted to eat it… The silverfish probably wouldn't even be able to help themselves.

His options were limited. How should he approach this menace with appropriate Gryffindor pluck and valor? How could he send his enemy scuttling back into the woodwork?

Or, better yet, scuttling straight into Snivellus's bed-sheets?

On a brief trip to Muggle London, suavely disguised in some extremely sexy oversized glasses and a gray pea coat he'd stolen from Remus and enchanted to stretch a bit to fit, he had found the answer to all his prayers.

It came in a shiny red canister that read _Raid_.

Armed, sexy, dangerous, and sexy, stripped down to his untucked shirt and his slacks for ideal mobility, Sirius engaged in a battle to the bitter, smeary death.

It was a battle he knew he could not afford to lose.

He shook the container vigorously, sucked in a deep breath, and then descended upon the dank corner behind Peter's bed in which the silverfish were staging their sinister campaign.

"See you in _hell_," he sneered.

He compressed the button, and a fine mist of liquid seethed free of the canister and settled all over the hapless silverfish, which writhed in exquisite agony.

Releasing the button, he stepped back, reveling in their destruction, and indulged in his richest evil chuckle.

_Sirius Black—DESTRUCTOR GOD OF DOOM!_

It was good to be a destructor god. It was pleasant to see his victims curling up in forlorn little silver balls to die ignoble dea…

Wait a second. They weren't dying. In fact, they didn't even look particularly incapacitated. In fact, they appeared to be massing their forces and _charging_.

This boded ill for our hero. Heroic destructor god. Whoever he was.

Growling menacingly, Sirius renewed his efforts, spraying with an adamant abandon. If these fiends didn't hurry up and _die_, he'd be stomping on them next, to the effect of what he imagined as a very squishy, insect-innards-ridden Riverdance.

Only sexier, of course. Because he was Sirius, after all.

Unfortunately, he was rather fond of these shoes.

Equally unfortunately, there was a growing bevy of silverfish pouring out of the walls and from under the beds, and they appeared to be attempting to surround him.

Which was interesting, as he hadn't realized that they strategized; and also interesting because he might be destined for an extremely disgusting demise any minute now.

Sirius hoped that he was either dreaming or being tested to see if he'd make a good protagonist for a first-person shooter game like the ones Peter liked in Muggle arcades, only with silverfish instead of zombies.

He bared his teeth. If they wanted to take him down, they were going to have to _take him down_, and they'd better be prepared to field some broken exoskeletons on the way there.

He wondered if last St. Patrick's Day's impromptu a cappella performance, which had taken place at one in the morning and gone on for an hour and a half despite a great deal of banging on the barricaded door, had inspired the staff to place soundproofing wards on the dorms—specifically on _their_ dorm.

Well, either way.

"_Die, fiends_!" he howled, laying about wildly with the Raid. "_BURN IN INSECT HELL_!"

…on second thought, given the incredible quantity of squirming silverfish, _this_ might be Insect Hell, so perhaps, in the interest of fire safety, they should burn somewhere else.

An attack force gathered behind his right foot, and he whirled to subject them to a hissing stream of Raid. Another group paraded towards him, feelers twitching, and he blasted them back. Right—left—further left—in the corner—right again—between his feet—under the bed—

These things were frigging _everywhere_; this was becoming a silverfish _massacre_, and the bodies were piling up, but they _just kept coming_—

"_DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE, YOU SLIMY, SEGMENTED BASTARDS_!"

Here, there, everywhere, in a box with a fox, on a train in the rain—

"_DIE! DIE! D_—"

"Jesus, Sirius, what—"

"_DIIIIIIIIE!_"

"_AUGH_!"

Sirius blinked, and the haze of murderous red that had veiled his vision dissipated, permitting him to discover James and Peter looking on dumbly as Remus rolled all over the floor, clutching at his eyes.

In the ensuing thirty seconds, Remus did a great deal of screaming in pain, James and Peter did a great deal of gawking that segued poorly into panic, and Sirius did a lot of pausing uncertainly, struggling to figure out who was a silverfish and who wasn't.

A merry trip—which was not actually merry for any of the involved parties—through the halls later, they arrived in the Hospital Wing.

Madame Pomfrey raised a skeptical eyebrow when Sirius explained that his Herbology and his Potions homework had gotten into a fight, but she kindly restored Remus's sight anyway.

Speaking of Remus, his eyes were very pink, and his face was very dark.

"I leave you alone for _five minutes_," he began, "and you're soaking the room in pestici—"

"—pestilent tears of homework-induced melancholia, yes," Sirius finished, glancing at Pomfrey where she was retreating to attend another patient.

Remus looked, slightly blearily, to James.

"When we get back," he said, "let's raid his trunk and make sure he doesn't have any stockpiles of nuclear weapons."

Sirius smiled absently. _Raid. Shiny red can of Raid; shiny can of DEATH…_

He returned to Earth in time to notice James staring at him.

"Moony," his bespectacled friend remarked slowly, "I think we might want to stay away from that word for a while."

Sirius scoffed. "I have fully recovered from my bloodlust, Prongs," he announced.

One of James's eyebrows flicked up. "Really."

"Really," Sirius confirmed blithely. "Don't be Raidiculous."


End file.
